I had a brilliant idea for this weekend. My mom had sent money for the kids' Christmas presents. I figured that since they already own 8,045,072 toys that they probably don't need any more. Instead I thought that we could take the money and use it for a trip away for the weekend. (Brilliant, right? Wait.)
We decided to take them to Santa's Village, in Jefferson New Hampshire. Since it's about 2 1/2 hours away, we also decided we'd stay overnight in a hotel. This one, in fact.
We found that they had a room which had one room with two double beds with a door separating another room with a Queen bed. Awesome, we thought. (how naive) We assumed the kids would sleep on their own side, and we could have our own side.
We originally thought we could leave right after work. However, we never packed, and that takes about 7 hours with this crew. Then we needed to feed everyone dinner, and drop Wyatt off at Respite. We ended up leaving Vermont at about 7:30.
The kids occupied themselves in the car by yelling as loudly as they possibly could, and determining how hard they could hit one another before drawing blood. After about 1 1/2 hours of that, we pulled over and moved car seats around. Connor and Aisling could no longer touch one another. By the time we arrived, they were all asleep.
When we got to the hotel, Connor and Aisling went right to sleep. Siobhan, however, was totally wound up. She stayed in between Al and I bouncing around until about 1:00 in the morning. Al, obviously, was able to sleep right through that, being the dad and all. I, however, had to keep up conversations with her about all sorts of random things. Super.
After a breakfast where we spilled everything in sight, bumped into as many people as we possibly could, and left a trail of crumbs and milk from the dining room to our hotel room, we hit the road.
It was freezing. Freezing. Extremely freezing. We still ended up staying for the entire day. We got there at around 11:30, and left at around 7:00.
That. Was. Stupid.
Although, we surely saw everything, and had a great time for most of it, but the time we left the kids were BEYOND exhausted.
Our time in the park was mostly great. We went on every open ride, made some gifts, decorated cookies, saw some shows, and even picked out gifts from Santa. Aside from one extremely exhausted and cranky baby and some isolated complaints here and there about the cold and being tired, the day was pretty fun.
Until, The End.
As you leave Santa's Village you exit through the store. There are baskets full of presents from Santa. We always have allowed each kid to pick one out. Then you pay for them (oh, did you think they were free? silly you!) and you unwrap them outside. Or, if it's frigid, you unwrap them in your car.
Let me stress here; we've been to Santa's Village at least 4 other times. And also, there's not a ton of variety in the gifts here.
The girls opened theirs, and each of them got a stuffed animal. (Yeah! More things to collect dust....) Connor opened his and he got a deck of cards and a lanyard. Oh no. The Same Deck of Cards from Last Year! Oh No.
Connor exhibited a tantrum unlike any I have ever seen. (I've seen a few in my day). This one rivaled them all. There was yelling, screaming, crying, swearing, and threatening. Also, he was pretty loud too.
Now, obviously, being a trained behaviorist, I responded to his tantrum with calm words and appropriate interactions. I supported his needs and responded to him with respect. I never yelled at him and obviously did not threaten to take away all of his toys for being so ungrateful. In fact, I think all of the parents around were stopping to stare at my phenomenal parenting skills and abilities. Obviously, they could tell I am a behaviorist. Obviously.
Well, once that was done we hit the road and headed home.
I vowed never to take a road trip with them again.
Ever.
Although, I also said that last month after we went to Rhode Island.
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